1 Thing You Need to Know About Coaching

Business Coaching, Executive Coaching or Retirement Coaching…..

The role of the coach in Business Coaching, Executive Coaching, or Retirement Coaching is always the same.  It’s to help the person being coached see the options ahead of them and to make the best choice from among them.

Like a coach in any individual or team sport, the business coach, executive coach or retirement coach does not jump in and play the game – or jump in and do the work of the person being coached – or tell you exactly what to do.  Sometimes consultants are hired to do that, but not a coach.

Most of my sessions with clients contain an element of brainstorming.  If we are looking at options, we walk down the path of the options that look like the best alternatives.  We talk about the pros and cons of taking that path.  If we hit a roadblock, we back up and take a walk down another option’s path.

It’s all about bringing CLARITY as you look down the alternative paths that lie ahead.  With clarity the unknowns are reduced which in turn reduces the stress of making a decision.

As you look at your business today, what options do you see?  How will you determine which path to follow?  Post your thoughts below and we’ll do some brainstorming together!

Who Will You Be By February 21st of Next Year?

You Get To Deicde!

I found an interesting exercise recently.  There were 2 steps, but as I share this with you I’ll add a third.

STEP 1:  Scan your cell phone Call Log to determine the 5 people that you talk to the most.  Are these people who help you grow?  Do they really listen to your ideas and help you in your decision making processing?

STEP 2:  Look at the books on your nightstand or in your briefcase – not the ones collecting dust, but the ones that you actually try to find time to read.  Are they books that will help you grow, or help you grow your buisness?  Do they stretch your mind and teach you new things?

The point of the exercise I originally read was that we will be the same person this time next year as we are today except for the people and the books that influence us.  Here’s where I add my own STEP 3.

STEP 3: Look at the choices you make on a daily basis.  Are there other choices that would help you move forward to being the person you would like to be by this time next year?

I’ve come to realize that the small choices I make help me to move forward to becoming who I want to be.  I can choose to be upset at the person who travels in the lane that is closed ahead until the very last moment, or I can smile and wave them in ahead of me.  I can be upset by the way the dishwasher was loaded or the way the laundry is folded, or just be happy that someone other than me did the loading and the folding!

Who do you want to be by February 21st next year?  Are the people you are spending the most time with helping you to get there?  Are the books you are reading taking you there?  What about the decisions you will be making for the next 365 days?  Stop and think about the choices you can make that help you move forward……sometimes it means taking a deep breath and looking hard for other options – but even that is good for you!

Try the 3 steps above and tell me what you find!  I look forward to hearing how you will be different by this time next year!         Holly

Great Stocking Stuffers for Business Owners

QUESTION 1: Can You Fit YOUR Business Into A Christmas Stocking?

As a business owner have you found a way to market your business so that you can be a part of Christmas giving?  We all know that retail stores are more than willing to sell gift cards that make great stocking stuffers, but what about some of us who are not in the retail business?  I’m sitting in a room of small business owners in my blogging club and here are my ideas for their business gift certificates: (some are free and certificates could be handed out at their next networking event, some require prepayment)

Mike – Things You Never Knew Your Phone System Could Do to Grow Your Business
Anne – As Your Parents Age – Planning For Life’s Changes
Ron – Honey-Do List Reduction Program – Prepaid Hours of Handyman Services
Jan – Updating on A Budget – The Small Things That Make a Huge Difference
Tom – New Year, New Look – Perfect Sizing Your Gravatar Image for Social Media

QUESTION 2: Looking for a stocking stuffer for a Business Owner?

Looking for a great stocking stuffer for a business owner in your life?  How about helping them start the new year off right with a couple of hours of Business Coaching?  Most Business Coaches I know would be happy to provide a gift certificate to help a business owner address their greatest need.

What about your business?  Can you create a great stocking stuffer for your business?  Share your ideas with us!

Goal Setting for Success in 2012

Step #1 Defining Success –

One of the key things that I find helps determine success for my clients as they head into the new year is a clear plan.  Don’t get scared off – I am not going to ask you to create a formal business plan – I’ll save that for a later post.

First I’ll ask you to fast forward in your mind to December 31st 2012.  If we were sitting together on that day, what would you say that would convince me that 2012 was a success for your business?  Is it the number of new clients?  Is it the end of year income statement?  Is it being able to take time off while the business keeps running?

Step #2 Focus on Success –

Once there is a definition of what “success” for 2012 will look like, we have a place to focus throughout 2012.  How can the goal be broken down into milestones throughout the year?  Let’s say the goal is to gain 52 new clients.  Using simple math, that would mean adding 13 new clients a quarter.  Now we have a yardstick to know if we’re on target or not.  Every quarter, take a count.  Is what we’re doing working, or do we need to try new tactics to reach the 52 mark by December 31st 2012?

If we need 13 new clients every quarter to get to 52, and there are 52 weeks in a year, we can work on gaining 1 new client a week.  How many people do we have to reach to create 1 new client?  If the closure rate is 1:1 or 100%, then we only need to talk to 1 new person a week.  If the closure rate is 25%, then we need to make sure systems are in place to connect with 4 people a week to lead to signing on 1 as a new client.  What strategies are in place to get you in front of those 4 new people every week?  Are you doing public speaking, presenting educational nuggets in person?  Are you blogging?  Are you faithfully networking in places where your ideal clients will be found so that you can increase the closure rate?  On December 31st 2012 it will be the things you put in place now and throughout the year that will make the success measureable with those 52 new clients!

Or….if your goal is to be able to step away from the business every once in a while without affecting the success, try it in small bites.  If you’re gone for an afternoon what comes up?  Can you develop systems to address that issue and issues like it so that they don’t require your personal involvement?  Get the systems in place and try being gone again.  Keep increasing the time away and quickly create systems to deal with the issues that come up.  By December 31st you may be on a beach with your business successfully running back home!

Share with us your vision of success on December 31st, 2012.  I look forward to seeing your business grow!

Black Friday and Your Business

 Is Your Business Ready for a Black Friday?

Many of my clients hope to grow their businesses.  I love to be able to help them do so.  My concern is always their readiness for the growth they desire.  We work hard to develop and implement the systems to allow them to actually handle the growth.

There are numerous stories of companies featured on a show like Oprah (or a newspaper review) that fail shortly thereafter.  What happened?  Let’s imagine a small boutique hand-made chocolate business in a small town.  Everyone loves the chocolates and the shop and it’s a special treat to receive a small box of just 4 of the chocolates.  The unique blend of flavors and the background of the owner makes them Oprah worthy.

Beginning the next day there is a line at the door.  The inventory is sold out within a few minutes of opening.  The rest of the people in line can’t be served.  The owner who personally hand makes each piece of chocolate is as busy as he can possibly be trying to keep up.  He calls in all the troops to help in the candy kitchen.  With extra hands and extra bodies the kitchen seems to shrink in size and the chocolates turn out slightly differently than they do when the owner alone makes them.  Everyone works hard and creates enough chocolate for Post Show Day 2.

The internet orders pour in as well as the customers through the front door.  Internet orders are delayed to serve those actually in the store.  Extra packing and shipping materials need to be bought before all the internet orders can be fulfilled, not to mention actually making the chocolates to ship!  The normal order/fulfillment system can’t handle the flood of orders and some get lost.  Online customers aren’t happy with the time it takes to ship those that eventually get filled and shipped.  The owner used to hand pack orders and now others are doing it who have never done it before.  You can imagine that things have changed.

It’s like a Black Friday for the business, but lasts longer.  It takes a while to recover.  The loyal local customers can’t wait for the buzz to subside so the shop can get back to normal and the chocolates get back in stock and hand-made by the owner.

So, the growth that you’re looking for……are you actually ready for it?  Are your systems expandable?  Do you know the rate of growth that you can sustain?  If the rate of growth comes faster than what you can handle, what is your plan?

It’s nearly Black Friday.  It’s nearly 2012.  What growth are you looking for, and how will you handle it?

Share the growth you are looking for in 2012 and how you have prepared your business to handle it.  I look forward to hearing from you.

390 Years Later – Thanksgiving For Business

 Thanksgiving for Business

As a business coach I am often amazed by the great ideas people have for starting a business or developing new areas for their business.  There are typically no limitations other than our own resources of time and money.

One of my newer clients is an immigrant from a former communist country.  He spent a few minutes telling me what life was like as a business owner in his former country.  Not everyone could start a business.  It required asking permission.  It often depended on who you knew and how much you were willing to pay to move your paperwork up through the ‘system’.  And finding customers?  Staying in business?  All difficult and required pleasing all the right people all of the time.  Even conversations with neighbors could affect your business.

In contrast we may have to pay to register our business and jump through a few hoops to make certain we are doing things the right way as we go about conducting our business, but business life is good here.

As you plan for your Thanksgiving season, take a moment to give thanks to all the businesses involved in making your Thanksgiving everything you hope it will be.  Give thanks to those who gathered together for the first Thanksgiving dinner 390 years ago.  They risked everything to leave their homelands with the hope of more freedom.  Give thanks for those that have protected our right to do business as we know it for the past 390 years.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all –

Open Letter to Millions of Small Business Owners

Is Your Mindset Growing As Quickly As Your Business?

Dear Business Owners –

Congratulations on your business success!  You’re doing things right.  Maybe it hasn’t been as easy as you thought it would be when you were just dreaming of owning your own business, but you’ve overcome the obstacles to get to where you are.

Has your mindset grown as quickly as your business, or is your entrepreneur mindset one of the obstacles that you still need to overcome?  My clients benefit from changing their outlook.  Let me explain –

>  When you first began your business you were probably personally involved in every aspect of the business, every decision that was made, and every dollar that was spent.  As your business has grown, are there areas of the business that you are still reluctant to delegate to anyone else?  Make a list of these.

>  You probably have line items in your financial systems that help identify what you are spending.  Do you have budgets set for those line items or are you just keeping track throughout the year?  Can you describe guidelines for expenditures in some of these areas?

>  Look at your personal physical location in your business.  Is your area positioned so that you are always working “in” your business when you are there, or have you moved away from the center of the activity to a location where you have the ability to work “on” the business as well?

I challenge my clients to try on a new mindset – the mindset that a corporate Chief Executive Officer (CEO) would have. In a corporate setting the CEO has delegated work to others, provided guidelines and budgets so that others can be responsible and held accountable for making good decisions in their areas of expertise.  The corporate CEO keeps a pulse on the business but works in an environment where they can work on strategic planning and growth plans to take the business to the next level.

Try on the CEO mindset today.  Look at your business as a corporate CEO would.  What would you change?  If you can’t make the changes today, define the steps that you can begin to take to get to where you need to be.

I promise the time you spend will be well worth it.

Respectfully,

Holly

P.S.  The next time you print business cards, think about whether you have become the CEO of your organization!

Blog readers – what do you think?  Where has your mindset held you back?  I look forward to hearing from you!

Delaying Your Launch for Perfection?

 I met with a business owner the other day who was holding back on really launching her business because she didn’t have everything quite perfect yet.  She didn’t have her elevator speech down pat and was having a hard time describing who her ideal client was and what the benefit of working with her was.

Can you relate?  Do you avoid situations where you may need to talk about your business or new product or service because you don’t feel like your message is perfect yet?  Are you delaying the launch until you reach perfection?

During our discussions she very clearly articulated her response to each of the things that were holding her back, but didn’t even know it.  It came out in conversation.  She stumbled when she was “working” at talking about her business, but in casual conversation she was very clear – she just needed a little help to put the words into the format of an elevator speech and a tagline that she was so worried about.  As she begins to work with more clients she may find that she develops a niche and that her clients provide her with the words that others like them need to hear about what it is she does for them.

Don’t get hung up on the “branding” of your business – just get started!  Brand for Today – not Forever.  Most business owners change their branding after the first 6-12 months, and again after 12-24 months.  It is almost impossible to pick a name, tagline, look and feel that will fit your business forever as your business responds to the market and your clients.

In developing something that may change as your business evolves, just make a decision and launch!  Go out and test your choice.  Talk to potential and current clients.  Talk to people in your networking groups.  See how people respond to what you say, but in particular notice how it feels as you say it.  Does it roll off your tongue, or do you stumble?  Test it, then change it if you need to.  Watch the furrow between the brows.  If you detect a softening, you are speaking to them.  If the furrow gets deeper, you haven’t quite hit the mark yet.  Make some changes and try again at the next networking opportunity.

The key is to get out there and try something!  Rehearsing your messages in your head is never going to give you the feedback that real people will.  Get out there and let your future clients help refine your message.  Don’t wait for perfection – brand for today, not forever.

Want to test your marketing messages?  Share them in the comments below and we will give you feedback!

What Would You Do If You Could Retire?

What would you do if you could retire?

First I’m a Business Coach.  That means I help clients develop their business to meet their goals.  My clients have led me to become a Retirement Transition Coach.  Once we get their business up and running efficiently and they have the option to begin to think about retirement they need help in planning their retirement.

Some of my clients are looking to retire in their 50’s.  For men that means they could easily live 30 years in retirement.  For women the odds are they will live even longer.  This next phase of life is something you need to plan for.  Check out the Fortune magazine June 13th Special Investor’s Issue that includes an article by Paul Keegan, Do You Need A Retirement Coach?  My clients agree that they do!

So, let’s say that your business is going well.  You have worked with a great financial planner and you feel like you could start to think about retiring from a financial perspective.  What will you do?

Some of my clients can answer within a split second.  I’ll golf every day.  I will travel.  I’ll write that book.  I will garden.  Wow, great answers.  In most cases they are looking forward to spending more time doing something they enjoy but can’t find enough time to do now because of work.  Great place to start.

But back to business, what is it that motivates you in your business?  Is it decision making?  Is it developing creative solutions to complex problems?  Is it providing great work for great employees?  Is it serving customers?  Remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?  What is important for you to feel complete and validated while you are in business will still be a part of you in retirement.

I work with my clients to determine what their motivators are and find ways to stay motivated and fulfilled in their retirement years.

Do you know what makes you feel fulfilled?  Are you getting fulfilled in your current work?  What will it be in retirement that helps you to feel fulfilled?  Yes, golf and tennis, but what after that?

Share your ideas below.  You may just find a new golf partner in someone else’s response!

Business Tip #7 – Am I Networking?

Business Tip #7 –

As a business coach, I run into business owners and sales people who tell me they network all the time.  Some don’t feel they get the results they hoped to get in the groups where they network.  If this sounds like someone you know, please do me a favor and ask them a question.  “Are you really networking?”  I anticipate their response will be much the same as the response I get when I ask the same question.

Let’s start with a definition of Networking, at least for this blog:  The act of meeting NEW people in a business or social context.

So if you attend “networking” events and spend all your time talking to people you know, are you networking according to the definition above?  Nope.  I call that “socializing”, not networking.  You’ll notice that “social” is in the definition above, but is not the act of networking.

Consider the networking event you attended most recently.  How many new people did you meet?  Did you treat them as a potential new customer and follow up after the event?  (More about follow-up in a future blog.)

I’m not saying you should ignore your friends at these events.  Incorporate them in your networking – it’s easier than doing it alone.  Let’s say you are talking to someone you already know and have caught up on the critical things you needed to share.  Now get to work networking.  Look for someone who has not yet found someone to talk to.  Perhaps they have that look of loneliness on their face, or they are hanging out near the food table.  Approach this person together.  Introduce yourselves.  Be interested in what the new person has to say.  Exchange business cards.  Introduce them to someone else in the room that you know could help them in their business.  When their conversation is going well, excuse yourself and move on to someone else new.

You can do this!  You can network:  The act of meeting NEW people in a business or social context.

Try real networking at the next event you attend.  Share your results in the comments below or send me an email if you need a bit more encouragement.                                   Holly Hanson